European Pillar of Social Rights
The European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) is an initiative launched by the European Commission in 2017. It has 20 principles and the very ambitious aims to bring back the social dimension of the EU, rebalance economic policies with social considerations, reconnect with European citizens, while at the same time addressing key issues related to changes in the world of work and society more generally, promoting higher social standards. The legal nature of the Pillar does not give the European Union more power or competence, but is aimed to be a tool to promote social rights with joint collaboration and responsibility of the European institutions together with Member States, civil society, social actors and social partners.
The European Commission has developed an Action Plan for the Pillar, which sets out the concrete actions to be taken to implement the principles of the pillar, in full respect of Member States' competences and taking into account the diversity of situations across Member States and today's and tomorrow's realities. The EPSR Action Plan also provides three 2030 headline targets to which Member States and partners committed in May 2021 during the Social Summit in Porto. The three social targets address key challenges related to employment, skills development and poverty reduction:
Source: European Commission
The Pillar has been designed with a long term perspective, to be implemented through the European Semester, as the main coordination tool, with the idea that social issues would be addressed in the Commission’s recommendations to the national governments (the Country Specific Recommendations). A set of indicators have been put in place to measure progress, named the social scoreboard of the EPSR. The Scoreboard is structured around three main dimensions, people-centred, coinciding with the three chapters of the Pillar:
- Equal opportunities and access to the labour market, related to education, skills and lifelong learning, gender equality in the labour market, inequality and upward mobility, living conditions and poverty, and youth;
- Dynamic labour markets and fair working conditions, covering labour force structure, labour market dynamics, and income;
- Public support / Social protection and inclusion, covering fair outcomes through public support and/or social protection.
EPR believes that the Pillar is an important opportunity for the EU to rebalance economic and social policy at EU level, highlight the importance of the social policy dimension of the EU, and provide a tool to mainstream social policy in other policy areas. This is necessary to help rebuild trust among the inhabitants of the EU, by showing them that the EU can bring benefits in areas important to them (social and employment issues) hence, help counter nationalistic tendencies that can arise because unmet needs are perceived as not being addressed at EU level.
EPR observes that in recent years, in many countries the focus has been on reducing costs of social services in order to reduce public debt rather than ensuring the quality, accessibility, affordability and availability of these services, which would promote social and labour market inclusion and mitigate the social and economic impact of poverty and social exclusion. Short term cuts to financing of services can lead to longer term costs and in some countries have exacerbated the crisis. EPR therefore believes that the Pillar should encourage, support and develop policies that will contribute to achieving equality between European citizens.
Read more about the European Pillar of Social Rights & service delivery for persons with disabilities here.